GOOD LIFE

Overview
In Ancient Greece, long before the term “science” has been coined, there was first a
need to understand one’s self, personal preferences, and the meaning of good life in order to
comprehend the world and reality. According to Plato, understanding reality is also uncovering
your soul’s desires and how it will flourish. In other words, if you want to understand the reality
of this world, you should understand yourself too. It was Aristotle who gave a distinctive
definition between the theoretical and practical sciences. He said that “truth” and “good” is the
aim of the said sciences, respectively. Rightly so, one must find the truth about what the good is
before one can even try to locate that which is good. In this lesson, we will be discussing the
true essence of your life. Are you really living in this so-called “good life”? Let’s find out!
1. Defining Good Life in Different Perspectives
The meaning of good life may differ from person to person. Your friend may see good
life as being wealthy. Your cousin may comprehend it as having a complete and happy family.
The smartest classmate of yours may understand it as getting recognition and reaching dreams.
The old man in your neighbor may thought it as fulfilled life. To them, this good life is perhaps
one of the fantasies of humans. Though the works of philosophers for the past hundred years
may seem separated from earthly desires, this is not always true. Philosophers like Plato,
Aristotle, Kant, and Nietzsche once made the understanding of good life as the center of their
philosophy.
Great Philosophers and Their Definition of Good Life
A. Plato
Plato once said, “the unexamined life is not worth living.” In typical ancient Greek fashion,
Plato and his mentor Socrates define the good life in terms of reasonable restraint and civic
duty. They believed that an individual become a master of himself using his reason to reign
in his passions, as well as doing what he can to help promote the stability of his community.
Plato also claims that despite the reality of change, things remain, and they restrain their
ultimate “whatness” – these concepts were explained by Plato through the two aspects of
reality which are world of matter (changing and impermanent) and world of forms (real
entities).
B. Aristotle
Aristotle disagreed with his teacher, Plato, for he believed that there is no reality over and
above what the senses can perceive. As such, it is only by observation of the external world
that one can truly understand what reality is all about. Change is a process that is inherent
in things. We, along with all other entities in the world, start entails change. Every human
person aspires for an end. This end, as what we have learned from the previous module, is
 happiness or human flourishing. No one – male or female, young or old, curly or straight,
poor or wealthy – resists happiness. We all want to be happy. Aristotle claim that happiness
is the end of everything that we do.
C. Immanuel Kant
Kant describes happiness as “continuous well-being, enjoyment of life, complete
satisfaction with one’s condition.” He refers to man’s preservation and welfare as
synonymous with his happiness. In the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant defines happiness
as “the state of a rational being in the world in the whole of whose existence everything
goes according to his wish and will.” Happiness is not pleasure. It is not the virtuous, joyful
feeling associated with living a moral life, rather, happiness is simple getting what you want.
D. Friedrich Nietzsche
For Nietzsche, life is best affirmed by a striving for individual excellence that he identified
with an idealized aristocracy. Despite his contempt for traditional morality, Nietzsche did
not seek to replace it with universal prescriptions, but rather to undermine our confidence
in all such notions of universality. Nietzsche attempts to disrupt old conceptual schemes, in
order to encourage us to think for ourselves. To love your fate is to know that everything
that has happened in your life; the good, the bad, and the ugly, has contributed to who you
are and what you are doing at this very moment. To embrace any part of life, says
Nietzsche, thus necessitates that you embrace all of it. Trying to create yourself will lead to
some failures but embracing those failures alongside your successes can help re-spark a
love of life and can help you see the meaning in even the worst moments.
2. Happiness as the Goal of Good Life
Are you living a good and happy life? It was said that the mission of life is to end the
miseries of material existence and attain a blissful life. Admit it or not, we are constantly
chasing after life, but we often fail in our pursuit. I’m sure that all of us have experiences failure,
sadness and rejection. We may get a glimpse of happiness, but it does not last forever. Most of
us, if not all, do not want miseries; however, we cannot avoid it. The ethical is meant to lead us
to the good and happy life. Through the ages, as has been discussed in the previous modules,
man has constantly struggled with the external world in order to reach human flourishing.
History has given birth to different schools of thought, all of which aim for the good and happy
life.
Different Philosophies of Good Life

Philosophy Description
Materialism The first materialists were the atomists in Ancient Greece. Democritus
and Leucippus led a school whose primary belief is that the world is
made up of and is controlled by the tiny indivisible units in the world
called atomos or seeds. For them, the world, including human beings,
 is made up of matter. As such, only material entities matter. In terms
of human flourishing, matter is what makes us attain happiness.
Hedonism The hedonists, for their part, see the end goal of life in acquiring
pleasure. For them, pleasure has always been the priority; and life is
about obtaining and indulging in pleasure because life is limited.
Hedonists strongly believe in the quote “Eat, drink, and be merry for
tomorrow we die.” This philosophy, just like materialism, rejects the
notion of afterlife.
Stoicism The school of thought led by Epicurus, the stoics espoused the idea
that in order to be happy one must learn to distance oneself and be
apathetic. Apatheia means to be indifferent. For the, everyone should
adopt the fact that some things are not within our control. The sooner
we realize this, the happier we can become.
Theism The ultimate basis of happiness for theists is the communication with
God. They find meaning of their lives using God as a fulcrum of their
existence. The world where we are in is only just a temporary reality
where we have to maneuver around while waiting for the ultimate
return to the hands of god. They believe in afterlife.
Humanism Humanism espouses the freedom of man to carve his own destiny and
to legislate his own laws, free from the shackles of a God that
monitors and controls. For them, man is the holds the steering wheel
as captain of his own ship. This is the spirit of most scientists who
thought that the world is a place and space for freely unearthing the
world in seeking for ways on how to improve the lives of inhabitants.